@marillo Globe-News: News: Garza brings campaign to Amarillo 10/22/98

Tony Garza, Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, said Wednesday that America's dependence on foreign oil has only increased since the Arab oil embargo more than 25 years ago.

"We were importing one-third of our oil in 1972, and we're importing more than 50 percent now," said Garza, who made an Amarillo campaign stop Wednesday afternoon at Tac-Air.

"We need to encourage domestic production."

If elected, Garza said, he will seek to implement tax and environmental policies that don't handcuff oil and gas producers. Many regulations, far from helping the environment, force producers to shut down wells, creating a hazard that they will not be plugged - or will be plugged incorrectly - and will contaminate the ground water, he said.

"As long as they are being operated, the wells are being serviced," he said.

Garza, a former Cameron County judge, was appointed secretary of state by Gov. George W. Bush in 1995 and resigned that post to run for the Railroad Commission. He faces Democrat Joe B. Henderson, an attorney and former judge from Houston, and Libertarian Jim Spurlock of Fort Worth.

Garza is running for one of three seats on the Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry and oversees drilling and production, natural gas pipeline safety, surface mining and environmental issues regarding oil, gas and mining.

Garza said too few Texans understand how important the state's energy sector is to the Texas economy. The industry employs 400,000 Texans and provides 10 percent of the gross state product, he said, and it generated $131 million for the Permanent School Fund and $64 million for the Permanent University Fund in 1996.

"You may not think the oil and gas industry affects your life, but if you have children in school, it does," Garza said.

He said he plans to place historical oil and gas documents on the Internet to make more information available to producers in a timely manner.

"I've heard that producers may spend 90 percent of their time doing research and 10 percent drilling," Garza said. "I'd like to change those ratios so producers spend less time wading through paperwork to find the information they need."